Prayer is not just talking… it’s listening as well.

“Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools,

who do not know that they do wrong. Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter

anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.” 

Ecclesiastes 5:1,2 NIV

 These two verses help keep our perspective in dealing with God. Sometimes we get into all kinds of trouble, in our prayer life and outside of it. We tend to talk too much. We rush into his presence with our lists or our complaints and worries and talk a mile a minute. When we’ve said our piece, we hang up the phone. God doesn’t get a chance to respond!

The writer of Ecclesiastes encourages us to approach God with an ear to hear and a heart willing to obey. Most of us have little difficulty in the talking part of prayer … it’s in listening that we need to mature.

Ponder: How might you build more ‘listening time’ into your prayer life? Do you ever feel that if you aren’t talking nothing is happening? How has God spoken to you in the past? Might He have some new ways of communicating his heart to you?